Linsey Lanier
Sally Kilpatrick
Sia Huff
Romily Bernard
Darcy Crowder
Marilyn Baron
Tami Brothers
Sandra Elzie
Carol Burnside
Debbie Kaufman
Maxine Davis
Tammy Schubert
Susan Carlisle
Pam Asberry
Lindy Chaffin StartNaked Short Selling and Other Romantic Tales
By Marilyn Baron
How do writers research topics with which they’re not familiar? Suppose you want your hero (or your villain) to be a Wall Street banker. How would you go about finding the information you need about your character’s background? For someone who thinks naked short selling is a broker pushing stocks in his skivvies, I’d have do so some pretty fancy footwork to make that character sound authentic.
You could surf the Net. Or interview someone with the same occupation you’ve chosen for your character. For example, my blog sisters and I are currently writing a cozy mystery featuring a heroine who is a librarian. So I grilled my friend who happens to be a librarian.
Should you write what you know? What do I know? My summer jobs before and during college have included working in a movie theater selling popcorn… A popcorn selling heroine? I don’t think so. I also worked in the Sears Credit Department approving credit card applications. Another resounding, “No.” Then there was the time I worked behind the deli scooping ice cream and making subs, at the cash register and announcing blue-light specials at S.S. Kresge and Company. Let’s see…“Their eyes met over the deli counter and they glazed over as they shared a ham sandwich…” No, that conflict would not be meaty enough.
I did do a one-year stint as an Information Specialist at the Florida Department of Offender Rehabilitation in Tallahassee, Florida, that might have possibilities. My husband used to joke and tell people his wife was in the prison system for a year.
Those were some pretty interesting times. During my first day on the job, there was an escape at one of the women’s correctional institutions. During my tenure, the system was so overcrowded, we had to set up a tent city to handle all the inmates. One of the inmates I featured in an article in The Sheriff’s Star who was out on work release and had turned his life around helping kids stay away from drugs, was arrested in a drug bust the day the article was published. Just my luck.
It was on that job that I learned to deal with printers. I published a statewide newsletter for Department employees that was typeset and printed by the inmates at one of the major correctional institutions. When I arrived at the office of the Superintendent of the institution to do the press check, he placed his gun on the table and accompanied me to the pressroom. He explained that he had to leave his firearm in the office in case he was overpowered by the inmates. When I asked what I should do in the event that happened he said, “Run.” He pointed to the four guard towers surrounding the facility and said the sharpshooters were there for that express purpose. That made me feel a lot better. Not!
I learned to be very tolerant of printers on that job. “Inmate #_______, the ink spread on this piece looks great!” I’d say. When he asked if the red looked washed out, I replied, “Absolutely not!”
Once, I attended a graduation at a correctional institution Cooking School, where inmates learned culinary skills before they’re transferred to the various institutions throughout the state to work in the kitchen. One hulking man came at me with a giant knife (worthy of Crocodile Dundee – “Now that’s a knife!”) and I had to force myself to stand my ground though my knees were shaking, until I realized he was simply walking over to cut the cake for the graduation ceremony.
I was a Public Relations manager at AT&T for 13 years and owner of my own PR firm. Interesting jobs, but hardly heroine worthy. Nothing so glamorous as editor at a fashion magazine, model, movie star or secret agent.
Oh well, I’ll just have to use my imagination!
What jobs/experience have you had and do you think they’d provide a good profession for a hero or heroine?
Tags: Marilyn Baron, Researching Characters, Write What You Know
About the author
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Marilyn Baron | Marilyn Baron's debut novel, The Edger, a humorous women's fiction she cowrote with her sister, award-winning Florida artist Sharon Goldman, was released January 2012. THE EDGER is available at Amazon Kindle http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006Y3P12Y#_
Smashwords http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/123376
Barnes & Noble Nook Books http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-edger-marilyn-baron/1108321593?ean=2940013703957&itm=1&usri=the+edger+marilyn+baron
Her humorous supernatural e-short stories, "A Choir of Angels," "Follow an Angel," and "The Stand-In Bridegroom," are available from TWB Press at http://www.twbpress.com/thestandinbridegroom.html.
Marilyn Baron is a public relations consultant in Atlanta. She’s a PRO member of Romance Writers of America, and is the winner of the GRW 2009 Chapter Service Award.
She writes humorous women’s fiction, romantic suspense and paranormal. Her manuscript, “The Colonoscopy Club,” finaled in the GRW Unpublished Maggie Awards for Excellence in 2005 in the Single Title category and "The Edger," won first place in the Suspense Romance category of the 2010 Ignite the Flame Contest, sponsored by the Central Ohio Fiction Writers chapter of RWA.
She graduated from The University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, with a Bachelor of Science in Journalism. What’s unique about my writing? I try to inject humor into everything I write, from romantic suspense to women’s fiction. I like to laugh and I think my readers do too. I tend to feature older heroines, because let’s face it, we’re not getting any younger.
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August 20th, 2010 at 4:32 am
Marilyn,
Loved the article. Too funny…especially the “run for the towers” part. (I was once inside Folsom Prison’s walls…they have towers also)
Gee, I’m a retired Accountant…very boring, for the most part.
Worked one summer (in highschool) at a hamburger joint where I was the only person there. (small, Mom & Pop type) One afternoon a carload of people stopped on their way home from a day at the lake and ordered 12 tacos, 7 shakes, 3 hamburgers and 7 orders of fries. I looked out at the line of about a dozen more customers waiting to place their orders and then looked the man in the eye and said…You’re kidding, right?
No, he wasn’t and I somehow made it through that day, but that summer was when I decided to definitely go to college.
I worked for an ambulance company for 2 1/2 years…now that had it’s exciting moments. Too many to post…some sad, some uproariously funny.
Sandy
August 20th, 2010 at 6:17 am
Sandy,
I can just imagine you asking that guy at the hamburger joint if he was kidding.
Now the ambulance job has story possibilities.
Thanks for your comment.
Marilyn
August 20th, 2010 at 8:12 am
I’ve done a few different things from waitressing to painting murals a hundred feet in the air. I never think about any one thing that would work for a character but I do pull from the people I’ve met during all those experiences when creating characters.
Sounds like you’ve had a wide range of experiences to pull from – should make for some great characters in your stories.
August 20th, 2010 at 8:23 am
Thanks, Dianna. I think painting murals in the air sounds like an interesting job for a heroine.
Marilyn
August 20th, 2010 at 8:25 am
Hmmm. I have to make things up. My longest career stint was as a high school teacher, and my one attempt to write about a teacher resulted in people telling me I needed to do more research on the profession.
I also worked as a Sonic car hop, a short order cook, and a janitor–so not heroine possibilities there.
I had a brief stint as a telemarketer and longer stints as a Borders bookseller and a transportation specialist. The latter provides the most possibilities, especially the part where I worked alone in the building from 11p until 8a.
Great post, Marilyn. I loved your stories about being in the prison system. : )
August 20th, 2010 at 9:33 am
Sally,
The Sonic car hop has interesting possibilities (An Undercover Sonic Car Hop).
No matter what the job, I think we all take snippets of our lives and incorporate them into our work.
Marilyn
August 20th, 2010 at 10:31 am
Marilyn,
I think your job working with prisoners was really cool. You also told me one time what your husband does. His work would make a great suspence book. I worked in a papermill as summer help during college. I poured cement, killed rats, unload trucks and sweep roads, amoung other things. Two people can fall in love anywhere. By the way, I’ve put a story line using what your husband does into my book to be folder. I’ll use it one day.
August 20th, 2010 at 10:41 am
Hysterical post, Marilyn. Love the part about the busted inmate and your article. Sounds like there’s story fodder from that prison experience.
But you’re right about jobs. My positions in the computer world for the most part, would not make good story fodder, although I did write a manuscript about a computer programmer once. I called it “Heart Hacker.” That’s one I’m going to dig out and revise some day.
But you know what? Even after all my years in the industry, I still had to do a lot of research. Guess it’s part of this job description.
August 20th, 2010 at 10:48 am
Susan,
Your job at the papermill sounds like it has potential. I think that would be an unusual background for a heroine. (Killing rats? Hmm. Maybe not, unless they were of the human variety).
My husband would find it interesting that you would want to feature what he does for a living. It’s pretty obscure, but I don’t know how suspenseful it is.
He runs an economic consulting firm and is an expert witness in the utility industry. He testifies in rate cases. Last year one of his clients gave him a Christmas gift of a book entitled, “Death of an Expert Witness.” I think it was supposed to be a joke, although it was a real book, but maybe that profession does have potential after all.
Marilyn
August 20th, 2010 at 11:41 am
Linsey,
I didn’t think my PR job would be an interesting profession for a heroine either, although I have had some funny experiences, especially traveling on annual report photo shoots. I can say I’ve been to
Helle and back — Helle, Norway, that is. I recall one shot in Norway where we were on a farm trying to get the best vantage point to shoot one of my client’s plants. While the farmer was showing me his barn full of potatoes, the photographer was walking in a herd of cattle and then tried to jump over an electrified fence and got the shock of his life. It wasn’t funny at the time, but looking back it was. Another time we were shooting at a castle in Wales and we wanted a few birds (peacocks) in the shot. So we bought a bag of pigeon food and scattered it around the executive we were photographing. It was like the movie, “The Birds.” Birds came from out of nowhere and surrounded us and we couldn’t get rid of them. But it made a nice shot.
Another time we were shooting in Louisiana and we stayed at a hunting lodge, accessible only by boat. Giant alligators were walking around outside the door of the lodge waiting for one of us to come out. Maybe they wanted a midnight snack.
Probably, if you think back, you can come up with some funny things that happened to you at work.
Marilyn
August 20th, 2010 at 12:34 pm
Great (and hilarious) post, Marilyn! There are so many interesting jobs out there. When I was in college, one of my jobs was at a paint-your-own-pottery studio, and most of the time I was stuck in the kiln room, sweating like crazy and wielding power tools and praying that little Jenny’s ceramic dolphin wouldn’t shatter in the kiln! I’ve also been a phone operator at a food delivery service, a nanny, a waitress, and had the requisite retail job (although I must admit it was at a pretty fun store).
I agree that there will almost always be a pretty heavy research component involved, but I definitely love the idea of interviewing people who actually do the job–it’s clearly a great place to hear about the wild and crazy stories! Thanks for the fun and helpful post!
August 20th, 2010 at 12:49 pm
Chelsea,
I love the story about your experience in the paint-your-own-pottery studio and sweating in the kiln room worrying about little Jennie’s ceramic dolphin.
Your mention of being a telephone operator brought up another experience I had. When I was a manager at AT&T, my first job out of college, the union went on strike and I was an international operator in Jacksonville, Florida, for about four weeks. That was interesting.
Thanks for commenting.
Marilyn
August 20th, 2010 at 2:01 pm
I spent a lot of my youth working in factories — good settings for Depression-era stories but that’s about it. I’ve also worked at an upscale art and craft gallery (which I loved) and spent 15 years as a craft designer and editor, which was fun because I had to learn how to do every new trend that came out, but not story-worthy since most of the time I was working alone and just communicating with the authors and other departments via email. My favorite job was working at a newspaper in the days before electronic layout, when we physically put the newspaper together, doing line editing as we went. Probably my most unusual job was the year I spent as a corporate librarian for a nuclear waste disposal company — sounds exciting but it mostly consisted of reading government publications in search of useful information.
But all of these settings contributed to story ideas, usually with a LOT of adjustment! And I’ve learned a lot of obscure facts about a lot of diverse subjects which may or may not find their way into a story at some point.
August 20th, 2010 at 2:32 pm
EC,
Thanks for your comments. You sure have led an interesting life, especially the corporate librarian job.
Your mention of working at the newspaper brought back interesting memories. I edited an employee newsletter for AT&T Long Lines (before the break up of the Bell System) and our newsletter was initially printed at a shop utilizing hot type. Every little change (in layout and at the printer) was painstaking. It was a neat environment. Things are so different today. Those press people were amazing.
I still have fond memories of all night press checks. Sometimes, when my husband was out of town I used to take my kids with me.
Marilyn
August 20th, 2010 at 5:21 pm
Marilyn,
I really enjoyed your post. Very interesting!
I know what you mean. I’d hate to write what I know about. The heroine was, once again, on a diet.
I love reading what all the people have done in their work-life. Very intersting group of readers here!
August 20th, 2010 at 5:50 pm
Ha! That’s funny. Your heroine and mine have something in common.
Marilyn
August 21st, 2010 at 5:02 pm
Marilyn –
Great article – I’ve got to comment, since I was the photographer that had the shock of his life. Thank goodness I already had my three daughters. It was like I had been hit by a bolt of lighting in the WRONG place. My voice raised three octaves!!!
I did scream, “Bloody Murder” and oh, you and that Norwegian farmer laughed so much. You may think it was funny, but I cringe to think about it.
I am sure you can get many ideas from all the many trips we took together around the world on business. Those were great times and I feel very fortunate to have experienced the many adventures that we had.
I think one of the most hair raising times was when we flew from Atlanta to Paris the week after 9/11. The Atlanta airport was completely like a ghost town. It was the strangest thing I had ever seen and then after we got to Paris, the Eiffel Tower had guards, arm to arm, circling the Tower with machine guns. That was a very strange trip.
I use to tease you as we would be running through an airport to catch another plane, saying that I was a CIA agent looking to pass a micro chip to another foreign agent. You would always say to be quiet, that that scared you, funny. Those were great times and times that I know you can use your imagination to create a great plot.
Take care,
Art
August 21st, 2010 at 8:06 pm
Yes, those trips were fun. The Italian countryside — an amazing shot, just as we almost lost the light. The trading floor in Amsterdam; Banff in Western Canada and getting caught in the whiteout; losing my luggage and having to wear the same clothes for three days, always on the lookout for spaghetti alla carbonara, and trying to get someone in Europe to make an amaretto sour. And the press check in Los Angeles. I have used some of those experiences in books and will in the future.
Marilyn
August 21st, 2010 at 10:02 pm
Hey Marilyn! Sorry I’m so late to the party…grin… Busy, busy week.
I’ve had lots of jobs I could use for fodder for a story but I’ve also had lots of “you want fries with that” kind, too. I have to admit that the third story I wrote and the very first one I entered into a contest was about a small town sheriff’s deputy. The scores I got back were all over the board and one judge commented that I knew nothing about law enforcement and how they talked on the radio. I sent my thank you note, but left out the fact that I had been a police/sheriff’s dispatcher for many, many years. And in a small town to boot. I’m guessing my inexperience in writing was the issue and not the wording because I know for a FACT that what I said was exactly some of the things that were said over the radio when I worked there. Another thing someone pointed out to me was that what some people THOUGHT was said in small towns, might not have really been what I knew was said. They may have gotten that wrong information from other wrong information printed in other books. I like to think that…grin…
Either way, I have a few good stories but like someone mentioned above, I need to do LOTS more research even in the areas I know quite a bit about.
Thanks for a fun peek into your ‘past lives.’
Tami
August 22nd, 2010 at 9:03 am
Thanks, Tami. Since you did have experience being a police/sheriff’s dispatcher in a small town, I would revisit that book or include that experience in a future book. How many people have that background? And, as we heard at yesterday’s GRW meeting, small towns are popular settings in fiction. Don’t doubt yourself.
Thanks for commenting.
Marilyn
August 22nd, 2010 at 10:39 am
Don’t forget about your summer at the now non-existent resort in Pennsylvania, with its cast of characters. We had some interesting times in the Reservations department.
August 22nd, 2010 at 11:40 am
I forgot about the summer at The Downingtown Inn in Pennsylvania. That was a hoot. Now that would make a book.
Marilyn
August 22nd, 2010 at 7:34 pm
Loved your post, but some of your follow-up comments were even funnier. Some of those glamorous sounding occupations are more of a grind when you are doing them. That PR work sounds pretty interesting to me. Especially the travel. I’ve had some pretty crummy summer jobs to keep me motivated to stay in school – Kroger deli/bakery, file clerk. My sister had a work/study job that involved walking around a room collating papers because a work/study student was cheaper than a collating copier. She wishes she had been issued a pedometer and been paid by the mile. One of my friends had a summer job with the highway department scraping dead dogs off the highway. He went on to get his bachelor’s and a professional degree. A friend was once complaining to me about his teenaged son who was flunking a class and would spend the summer repeating it. I advised him to find a really miserable summer job.
August 30th, 2010 at 11:50 am
Awesome read. I wish i could take advice like that and simply do it. as a substitute ailing think about it for per week then forget it
maybe i can change